Tour bus crash death toll rises to 8

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Elvira Garcia Jimenez, a 40-year-old doctor at a Tijuana, Mexico, hospital, brought along her mother and her teenage son on a day trip to a Southern California ski resort with a tight knit group of her co-workers.

None of the three family members would return.

They were among eight people who died after a tour bus violently collided with other vehicles on a two-lane highway on a return trip from the mountain resort of Big Bear over the weekend.

The eighth fatality occurred early Wednesday when the driver of a pickup truck struck by the bus, Fred Bailey Richardson, 72, of San Bernardino, died at Loma Linda University Medical Center, said coroner's supervisor Tony Campisi.

Jimenez's son, 13-year-old Victor Cabrera-Garcia, had wanted to see snow as a way to celebrate his birthday on Jan. 13, Luz Garcia told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

She said Cabrera-Garcia, Jimenez, and the boy's grandmother, 61-year-old Guadalupe Olivas, were all members of her ex-husband's family. All three lived together in a modest San Diego home.

"We are so sad. We hurt very much," Luz Garcia said in Spanish in a phone interview. "It's hard because we are suffering the pain from losing members from three generations. Each one hurts equally. It's horrible. It has been a nightmare."

The trio was part of a party of 10 people who were employees of the Tijuana hospital and their family members, said Samuel Gasca de los Reyes, spokesman for Mexican Institute of Health and Social Services for Baja California state workers.

"They were a very tight group," Gasca de los Reyes said. "They were very close outside of work."

Two people from the group remained hospitalized, he said.

As loved ones grieved, federal and state investigators combed the mangled wreckage for clues as to what caused the accident that also left dozens injured.

Authorities targeted the brakes and other equipment in their effort to explain why the driver lost control in the San Bernardino Mountains on the way back to Tijuana.

The roadworthiness of the 1996 bus loomed as a key issue after the driver told investigators the brakes failed as he descended from the popular ski area. Federal records pointed to a history of brake-maintenance problems with the European-made bus.

"We are going to look very closely at the brakes as we will every other mechanical system on the bus," National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss said.

The California Highway Patrol and NTSB were collecting evidence on the bus, road conditions and possible driver error or fatigue.

NTSB officials also went to the offices of bus operator Scapadas Magicas LLC, in National City, Calif., where they interviewed owners and employees, and gathered documents on the maintenance history of the bus, Weiss said.

The bus, its front roof collapsed and windows shattered, was towed to an auto yard in Ontario that the CHP uses to store evidence, Officer Mario Lopez said.

The bus was carrying 38 people, including the driver and a tour guide, when it left Tijuana at 5 a.m. Sunday for the daylong trip. It was returning on State Route 38, which meanders through San Bernardino National Forest, when the accident occurred around 6:30 p.m.

Olivas was Luz Garcia's mother-in-law before she divorced her husband, and the grandmother of their children.

Luz Garcia said her children have not left their home since hearing the news about the deaths of their grandmother, aunt and a cousin who loved soccer and played on a local team as a goalie. He was Elvira Garcia's only son.

One of his happiest moments, she said, was getting an autographed photograph of Tijuana's soccer team, which in December won the border city's first Mexican Apertura division football title.

"This is very painful for me," she said. "I'm sorry I can't talk more."